The prize committee’ led by Jewish Agency Chairperson- Natan Sharansky, recognized Kapoor as “one of the most influential & motivated artists of his generation”.

Kapoor would like to use the award prize to help alleviate the refugee crisis and try to expand the Jewish communitys engagement in a global effort to aid Syrian refugees.

“Jewish identity and history have witnessed recurring conditions of indifference, persecution and Holocaust. Repeatedly, we have had to repossess ourselves and re-identify our communities,” Kapoor said.

“As inheritors and carriers of Jewish values, it is unseemly, therefore, for us to ignore the plight of people who are persecuted, who have lost everything and had to flee as refugees in mortal danger,” he added.

“Outsider consciousness resides at the heart of Jewish identity and this is what motivates me, while accepting the honour of the Genesis Prize, to re-gift the proceeds to refugee causes.”

“I am an artist, not a politician, and I feel I must speak out against indifference for the suffering of others. There are over 60 million refugees in the world today ? whatever the geography of displacement, the refugees crisis is right here on our doorstep,” he added further.

Stan Polovets, chairman and co-founder of the Genesis Prize Foundation, said the profoundness of Kapoor’s work remarks the long history of Jewish endowment to the arts, while his social activism reaffirms the diligence of the Jewish people to humanitarian causes.

“We particularly admire how, in an age frequently characterized by cynicism and indifference, Anish continually advocates for the world’s disadvantaged & challenging all of us to do more to help wherever and whenever we can,” Polovets said.

“Anishs commitment to alleviate the plight of Syrian refugees will resonate with the Jewish community, especially young Jews, everywhere.”